Lakes and Palaces, palaces and lakes...

Day 9

Christmas morning, glorious clear sunny weather, but so doesn't feel like a regular Christmas. Head up to the rooftop for breakfast but there is no one really serving. Down at the reception we get an emphatic confirmation that there will be a breakfast served, so we trudge back up the 5 flights of stairs and take a seat on the garden furniture. Some old Indian dude looks like he just woke up and starts getting his stuff together. The staff seem to sleep wherever they can find a spot to crash. Another guy comes up and spreads a filthy tablecloth over the cold marble slab that serves as a breakfast table. We push the cloth aside and contemplate the state of the breakfast that is to come. I wonder into the kitchen and enquire about what's cooking. It's the usual dank dark setup with a couple of guys pretending to be cooks. They respond with the butter toast and chai. A bit later the toast arrives, followed a bit later with the jam. We eat without pleasure and make our way down to meet with Mr Narender.

We drive to lake Pichola to the city palace where we meet up with our guide Jagdish. We join the queue to purchase our tickets (Rs25 entry and Rs200 for the camera). The queue is getting quite pushy, and in the rush of paying I could swear the ticket office short changed me. We made our way through the palace gates and into the outer courtyard. Jagdish points out the three gateways, called a tripoliya. Each of the wooden doors is studded with sharp spikes, you guessed it, elephant repellent. We look out over the city and Jagdish tries his level best to convince us that most of the buildings are white, hence the colour white being associated with Udaipur (Jaipur=pink, Jodhpur=blue, Jaiselmer=gold). He goes on to explain that the kings of Udaipur believed they were descended from the sun, each day they would start the day by worshipping the rising sun. They added an image of the sun made of bronze to the exterior of the palace so they could even worship on overcast days. The Udaipur city palace is the second largest in India. Most of the palace is now a museum but the royal descendents still live in a section of the palace.

Jagdish started to tell us a story of the Pratap Singhji, Maharana of Udaiper, who was resisting the rule of the Mughal Akhbar. So they had a battle, but he didn't have any elephants to go into war with, so he fashioned a prosthetic trunk onto his trusty steed Chetak transforming him into a baby elephant. He then went out and dispensed a can of whoop ass on Akbar who was obviously petrified of the fearsome horse elephant abomination. Unfortunately things didn't work out so well for Chetak, gored by the elephant he rode out of battle but died in the the kings arms. The kings of Udai never capitulated with the Mughals by inter-marrying. This is why they are called Maharanas, not Maharajas, according to Jagdish.

We then proceeded into the palace where it was getting really busy. It was holidays in India as well and the palace is a popular attraction. The guide pointed out colourful decorative tiles imported from England, and a golden Ganesh statue. We proceeded through the palace and a saw a lot of artworks, paintings, artifacts and rooms used by the royalty of the centuries. The palace was somewhat of a mishmash of styles, due the many Maharanas who added there own touches to the palace. Overall it wasn't as impressive as the other forts and palaces we had seen in Rajasthan, even though it was larger. By this stage we were noticing some repetition in decorative elements used in palaces such as lattices, stained glass windows, mirrors, peacocks etc.

One interesting story was of the last Maharana, Bhupal Singhji, who was paralyzed at age 18 in a polo accident. He spent the rest of his life in a wheel chair and had a lift installed to allow him to access areas of the palace. He displayed quite a sense of humour by having a fake door painted next to the lift entrance, which he invited his guests to try while he made use of the lift.

The style of some of the artworks was also intriguing, in that they presented a sequence of events instead of a single moment in time. For example there was one where we saw 5 bears being hunted by the king, but it was actually just 1 bear making his way over to the king.



Outside the palace we made our way to the pier and jostled for a spot on the next tourist boat. The boat normally costs Rs300 but our tour company covered the cost. The boat made a slow circuit of the lake, passing the city palace, the old city waterfront Havelis, and the beautiful lake palace. We also spotted some ghats, where locals were bathing and washing clothes. I almost thought I saw the jeans and shirt I handed in for laundry that morning being washed, I hope they keep all the buttons! We stopped and got off at the Jag Mandir, garden palace island. This island is where Prince Khurram, who became Shah Jahan builder of the Taj Mahal, hid out while rebelling against his father. Well he couldn't have picked a better spot because it was simply beautiful. Nix was having a diva moment, so I bought her strawberry spice cooler, which was actually delicious, so we could sit at the cafe and pretend to be wealthy guests. From there we walked around the tiny island, taking in the views and some great photos. We saw a nice restaurant, rooms, a spa and tranquil gardens. We caught the next boat back.

Back at the palace, we met up with our driver and went off for some more forced shopping, yippee. We arrived at the arts and crafts shop and the shop keepers gave us a quick demo of how the paintings were prepared, mixing colors etc. We had a look at some of the goods and Nix really liked this painting of an elephant which we bought.

After the shopping we had a quick lunch nearby. Lunch consisted of Paneer Palak (Spinach and Cottage Cheese) and Aloo Mutter Ghobi (Potatoes, Peas, Cauliflower) and plain naans.

After lunch we made a quick visit to the oldest church in Udaipur. The church was fully decorated for the Christmas holidays. It was quite a novelty to have to remove our shoes before entering the church, not something we have to do at home. The church was quite a typical western type construction, the founder was a Scot called Shepard. We sat in the tightly packed pews enjoying the Christmas carols, sung by Indian children, being played over the speakers. Afterwards we made a tour of the church grounds and then headed back to the hotel and bid farewell to our guide.

We made arrangements to go eat out at the Ambrai restaurant later that evening and then relaxed at the hotel for a while. We got bored and decided to go for a walk to the Fateh Sagar lake. We headed for a pier where we might catch a boat to the island in the lake. Tuk-tuks kept stopping to offer us a lift, incrededulous that goras would choose to walk. Indian teenagers on holiday gawped at us and asked for photos like we were some kind of traveling freak show. We finally got to the pier, but decided to go to the moti magri (Maharana Pratak Smarak Samiti) across the road instead. It was Rs30 each and Rs20 for the camera. It was basically a park with some memorials and a museum. We walked around the gardens admiring a ruined temple, some statues and views over the lake below. At the top we saw a statue commemorating Pratap Singh and Chetak of fake elephant fame. As we made our way back we stopped in at the museum which initially looked rubbish but actually turned out to be a bit of a gem. The main items on display were artworks, some weapons and scale models. The models were the highlight, depicting a battle scene with little elephants and horses, and one elephant horse, soldiers and realistic terrain. There was also a model of Chittorgarh fort, the original site of the Udai kingdom before they had to relocate to current day Udaipur. We made a brisk walk back to the hotel, freshened up and hit the town for some pre-dinner shopping.

Mr Narender dropped us of at Ambrai and we walked around from there. We explored some of the areas we hadn't seen before but nothing of interest really got our wallets out. Everywhere we went we drew a chorus of 'hello where you from happy Christmas'. We took a couple of nice photos around the lake and then headed back to the restaurant.

The place was set in a garden under a huge tree, beautifully decorated with Christmas lights. The setting was directly next to the lake, and the view of thr lake palace and city palace was spectacular. Some local musicians played gentle music on traditional instruments... We ordered some kingfishers, an aubergine curry, and a Rajasthani rice/potato/lentil speciality, missi roti and butter naan. The rice speciality was crap, but the aubergine and everything else quite nice. We finished off with kheer (rice pudding) and chais. The bill came to Rs1400, R215, about the same as the previous night. Although this restaurant was rated as nicer and more expensive than the Jagat Niwas, we actually preferred the Jagat, but would recommend both as nice places to dine with a great view and ambience.

- Van


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Location:Udaipur, India